(Haaretz) — What has made some people nervous about Angela Buchdahl becoming the senior rabbi at Central Synagogue – one of the two largest Reform synagogues in New York and one of the biggest in the United States – is not that she’s the first Asian-American rabbi. It’s not that she’s a woman or, at 41, so young to lead a congregation whose membership will soon number 2,400 families. It’s not that she’s been working primarily as a cantor for most of her career. It’s not even that she’s the mother of three young children, though that has given some in her congregation pause, Buchdahl said. No, it’s because she talks about God.

“We become very nervous talking about God in the Jewish community,” Buchdahl tells Haaretz. “I made people on the search committee a little nervous about it.”

God is at the center of Buchdahl’s life. Born in South Korea and descended from a Korean king, she has prayed every night since she was a young girl in Tacoma, Washington, with a Korean-Buddhist mother and American-Jewish father. And in her new role at Central Synagogue, she is trying to put God at the center as well.

“She has given a lot of thought as to where God fits into the Jewish vocabulary and how tricky that is for many of us,” says Abigail Pogrebin, a writer and vice president at Central Synagogue, and member of the rabbinic search committee. In her interview with the committee, “she went there in a way that I often find leaders don’t,” adds Pogrebin.

Buchdahl was nominated by the synagogue’s board in December and approved unanimously by the congregants on January 7. At the synagogue where she has worked as senior cantor since 2006, Buchdahl will take over as senior rabbi on July 1, following the retirement of Rabbi Peter Rubinstein.

While Buchdahl first enrolled in the Reform movement’s rabbinical school, stopped in order to become a cantor and then reenrolled in rabbinical school, she has an unusually ecumenical background. She took classes at the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary, studied at the Orthodox Drisha Institute and the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. “I have had a lot of pluralistic learning experiences,” she says. “I don’t see the traditional boundaries.”

Synagogue walls are one of them. The Shabbat and holiday services that Central Synagogue live-streams are viewed by hundreds each Friday night and at least 25,000 people in 49 different countries on the most recent High Holy Days.

“You always worry that people aren’t attending their local synagogues” if they’re live streaming, Buchdahl says. “But in most cases, it’s a choice between watching us or doing nothing.” Other Jewish communities are not reaching them. “I have a friend in Laramie, Wyoming, who watches us and said, ‘You are our Jewish life,’” Buchdahl reveals. Even where brick-and-mortar congregations exist, “unfortunately, synagogues are not supporting people’s needs.”

Buchdahl is trying to carve out intimate subcommunities from the enormous congregation that generally gathers only in Central’s soaring Moorish-architecture building.

In a new effort called Central Conversations, members will meet in each others’ homes to discuss key Jewish ideas, sparked by a study guide and short videotaped messages. In hers, Buchdahl talks about different ways of experiencing God. The effort is being piloted in eight test groups, which Buchdahl hopes will soon become 100.

Central has more than 100 full-time staff, Buchdahl says, and some 20,000 guests of bnai mitzvah families come through its doors each year. Friday night services are attended by 500 to 700 people. About a quarter of all members are in interfaith marriages, which she sees as an opportunity.

“We have a lot of Jews who can bring a lot of people into the community if we don’t just say ‘Pay membership dues.’ We embrace everything you bring. That’s a really important message.”

Another of the Central Conversations goals is empowerment, she adds. “Judaism used to be a closed, fixed canon that was hard to access. Now, when it feels like everything is open source and open access, I still think the Jewish community hasn’t come to that new paradigm. In all the other areas of people’s lives they have the tools, but in their Jewish life they feel they don’t, so they feel inadequate,” she believes.

Though Buchdahl was involved in Reform Judaism from the time she was a child, she decided to formally convert at 21.

“For the longest time I struggled with this sense that if I carried another cultural identity, that somehow I couldn’t be 100 percent Jewish,” she says. “People often have identities that feel competing – homosexual and Jewish, or Orthodox and feminist. Growing up … it was very evident on my face that I felt it was something I had to explain and defend more often than most people. But I learned how much this struggle resonated for so many people – even those with two Jewish parents and a more traditional Jewish background.”

Central board member Pogrebin says that while Buchdahl’s biracial heritage is now a nonissue within the congregation, “it allows people who aren’t what we all assume to be the Jewish profile an entry point. This is history making.”

For more stories, go to Haaretz.com or to subscribe to Haaretz, use the following promotional code for Forward readers: FWD13.

Top Stories

The Jewish Daily Forward welcomes reader comments in order to promote thoughtful discussion on issues of importance to the Jewish community. In the interest of maintaining a civil forum, The Jewish Daily Forwardrequires that all commenters be appropriately respectful toward our writers, other commenters and the subjects of the articles. Vigorous debate and reasoned critique are welcome; name-calling and personal invective are not. While we generally do not seek to edit or actively moderate comments, our spam filter prevents most links and certain key words from being posted and The Jewish Daily Forward reserves the right to remove comments for any reason.

Inspired by his Brooklyn childhood, The Little Beet chef/owner developed a gluten-free version of apple pie for his restaurant that's the perfect #passover dessert: baked apples with vanilla-walnut charoset.

Has your non-Jewish colleague told you Passover is only one night — or that Hanukkah always falls on December 25? That's #goysplaining, says Lilit Marcus.
Have you ever been goysplained?

It's only been a day since Trevor Noah was appointed Jon Stewart's The Daily Show successor, and he's now being slammed for old anti-Semitic tweets.
What do you think of Noah's tweets? Let us know in the comments.

Israel's own Black Panthers once latched onto the #Passover story to challenge Ashkenazi domination. The radicals issued their own Haggadah, which mentioned strikes and injustice — but not God.

Fans of the The Daily Show are wondering how new host, Trevor Noah, will address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Well, his past posts on social media indicate he probably won’t be appearing at next year’s AIPAC conference

#Passover is now five days away. That means matzo, matzo, and more matzo — kind of a mood killer. Here are 6 things you should watch to get you revved up for Seder.

Even though it's often men who lead the Seder in traditional Jewish families, Avi Shafran believes that the Seder itself is maternal in its quality and purpose.

From our friends at Kveller.com, need something delicious for a Passover snack? How about this potato pizza kugel!

#Passover is especially meaningful — and challenging — when you're converting. Take it from Kelsey Osgood, who felt like a 'stranger in a strange land' at her first Seder.

Ex-Navy Seal Eric Greitens is plunging into the GOP primary for #Missouri governor — the same race shaken by the suicide of a candidate dogged by an anti-Jewish 'whisper campaign.'

"My cousin and I are both dating non-Jews who are considering converting. Is it wrong to ask our dad to tone down the Seder this year so they get a nicer impression of Judaism?"
Check out the advice in this week's #Seesaw: http://jd.fo/p8Jdx

In her now infamous New Yorker piece, Lena Dunham acted like an outsider looking in. Doing this made it not just unfunny but anti-Semitic, J.E. Reich says.

In Rabat, Jonathan Katz found more tolerance for Jews than he’s seen in many "clean and safe" Western cities. So why is #Morocco often described as "dirty and dangerous"?

As far as we know, Abraham Lincoln never said, "Some of my best friends are Jewish." But clearly he could have.

Vayter / ווײַטער: A biweekly blog presenting original Yiddish articles, fiction, essays, videos and art by young writers and artists.

We will not share your e-mail address or other personal information.

The Forward occasionally sends promotional e-mails to our subscribers on behalf of selected sponsors, whose advertising supports our independent journalism. We hope you will look at their messages and find their offers interesting to you, but if you would like to opt out of receiving them, please uncheck this box.